


Home Sweet Home

by vanillafluffy



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Gen, Homesickness, Loneliness, Mark Watney rules Mars!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 14:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8059252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: Homesickness isn't just about the place where you live. A lot of things mean home, especially when you're literally a million miles away from all of it





	

Mark never says it in his log entries, though he thinks it often: _I want to go home._

"Home", in this context, doesn't specifically mean Chicago, where he lived until he was out of grad school, or his little apartment near Johnson Space Center. "Home" is a code that means "a normal life", it means having people to talk to, means being able to do ordinary things like having pizza and beer with friends, or spending an afternoon on the couch watching the Cubs getting clobbered. 

During the austere months of potatoes and more potatoes, _I want to go home_ means a cheeseburger with the works, a big bowl of spaghetti marinara from that Italian place down the block, his mom's oatmeal-raisin cookies (better than any granola bar on the planet--or Earth, for that matter), anything that isn't potatoes. 

Sometimes, when he's worn out from the perpetual struggle--with technology, with the environment, _I want to go home_ means "I'd really like to go for a walk that doesn't involve wearing a hundred pounds of outerwear" or "I know it's helping keep me alive, but I miss the days when I could take a crap, flush it and forget about it.". Sometimes it's as simple as wanting to watch the sun set. 

He grits his teeth and makes do--caffeine pills in hot water will never equal coffee, but it's what he has. _I want to go home._ is what drives him, keeps him going when it would be so easy to give up. He thinks of reuniting with his Ares3 teammates, wants to see blue sky again, imagines swimming in the blue-green waters of some tropical paradise like Fiji or Tahiti. Someplace warm, where they have booze, served with fresh fruit and little paper umbrellas.... 

The Hab isn't home. When he shuts down all systems in preparation for his journey to Schiaparelli, it's a solemn moment, but he isn't sorry to leave it. It's kept him alive, but there are too many memories of fear, despair and loneliness in its canvas for him to miss it. 

Living in the Rover is like living in a shoebox--a very high-tech shoebox, but still a shoebox. He remembers one of the apartments they'd lived in when he was growing up...their furniture had barely fit into the living room, and his mom had said with a sigh that there wasn't enough room to swing a cat. 'Why would you want to?" he'd asked. Now, a cat would be company. He smiles as he imagines the difficulty of cats on Mars, not the least of which is them clawing holes in the canvas. Or coaxing it into an EVA suit, wouldn't that be a hoot? It wouldn't work long-term, though; he remembers cats are carnivores--it wouldn't survive on the potato diet. 

By the time he's strapped into the MAV, _I want to go home_ is an earworm that screams, "Get me out of here! I don't care how dangerous it is, just get me the fuck off Mars!" When the engines roar to life, it underscores the shrill refrain that's all he can think, until the moment when G-forces cause him to pass out. 

Mark Watney is going home. 

...


End file.
